Nate Berkus and his partner have commissioned another child. They paid another woman, or women, if a separate egg donor was used, to sell her body in order for them to raise another child. They purposefully, and willfully separated a human being from their mother, and half of their natural family, simply to satisfy their own desires.

And the world loves it! So progressive! How brave, you deserve it. Don’t the children these men are raising deserve to know their own mother? How can anyone deny a child that, and then say they love that child? Are these men so blinded by their wants that they cannot see what they have done?

I guess the answer is yes. And most of society seems to agree. “Biology means nothing”, they cry. “Love makes a family”. But not their family. They want their own children, and their own parents, thank you very much. Biology matters to them, it just isn’t supposed to matter to those created to fulfill desire. Or those bought to create a family. We are the exceptions to the rule.

If biology really didn’t matter, why do they bother to identify babies born in the hospital? Why not just mix em up, and hand them out to parents randomly. It really shouldn’t matter, right?

I’ll bet it would matter a lot. As it should. Buying or selling human beings, or the materials used to create human beings is wrong. It is wrong because it dishonors the child. It takes something from the child that should never be taken. It takes the child’s parent and heritage, and the child is powerless to stop it.

Say anything against this and you’ll be called old fashioned, misogynistic and anti LGBT. How else can these people raise a family? Maybe, sometimes, they can’t. Or, they have to find a way that honors the child’s heritage, and includes all of their biological family in the child’s life. It’s the least you can do, for a child you love so much.

Lately, I’ve been comparing being adopted to being kidnapped. I read a book, “The Real Lolita, The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World”. It was a good book.

The girl who was kidnapped was abused by the kidnapper, and I was not abused by my adoptive parents, but the same sense of being taken against my will has been with me all of my life. I have always felt like I was not where I was supposed to be.

I was the 6th generation born in my little corner of NYC, but I have no ties to the place where my ancestors lived. Their bones are buried there, but I’m a stranger to that place.

Like the young girl in the book, I had to comply with my kidnappers , in order to survive. Unlike Sally, my family was not looking for me. There was no joyful reunion, when I finally was reunited with them. Their lives were fine without me in them.

I am the only one who felt I was kidnapped. The rest of the world thinks everything is fine.

It is a tool used by the adoption industry to normalize the act of giving you child away to strangers. That sounds horrible, because it is!

How much nicer to think a loving mother made an adoption plan, and lovingly placed her newborn in another’s arms, then went on to live a happy, carefree life, sans baby. What could be better?

Who want to hear of a desperate woman, convinced she will never be good enough for her own child. Who wants to hear her cries as she walks away from her newborn, breasts still leaking milk, body still battered by childbirth? The months and years of grief, for both mother and baby?

Much better to use PAL. No pain in that story! Whitewashed by new, better language.

How about changing murder to involuntary termination of respiration? Rape: Unplanned sexual intercourse. We can make anything palatable, if the language is right.

I was given away, surrendered, relinquished. It was cruel, brutal and very ugly. My language reflects that. Real adoption language reflects the truth. The horror.

It’s a hell of a thing, being brought up in a strangers family. It’s thankfully rare. It should be rare. Children should not have to deal with that kind of pain.

No one needs to be cut off from their roots like that. Every human being deserves to know who their parents are.

When I found my family, it changed everything. Not in my day to day life so much, but in my internal life. I was not the same as I was before. I had finally seen the monster in the closet, and I did not die.

After I found my family, I had some hard conversations with my adoptive mother. I was outraged that she had gone along with the whole closed adoption thing. Suddenly, my whole life up to then had been a lie. I knew I was adopted, but I did not know why. My mother had been abstract, unknown and feared. By me, and my adoptive mother. We had that in common, but not anymore.

My adoptive mother clung to the belief that she did nothing wrong. She followed the social workers advice. If I had a problem with being adopted, it was not her fault. She did as she was told.

That unfortunately, was not good enough.

I can’t remember when I stopped loving her, but I was very young. Maybe it was when she said she was my only mother. Maybe it was when she dropped me off at her sisters for the summer. Somewhere along the line, I realized I was alone.

I hated when she said she loved me. I wanted to scream in her face, “then why aren’t you helping me find my mother?’. But, of course I never did. There would be no point. She was doing everything right, just as she was told.

She wanted her own baby, not me.

I was so dumb, I didn’t know that when I was growing up. I thought I was the only one in pain. Now I know that’s not true. She was hurting just as much. We could not help each other.

The difference is, she chose to adopt. She chose to bring a helpless little person into her messed up world of pain. I chose nothing.

I guess she thought I would fix her. I did not. It should not have been my job to fix a strange grown up woman. I wish we had never crossed paths.

Last night, I woke in the middle of the night, and I felt such fear and dread. I sought the root of the feeling, and could not find it. I remembered that I have always felt this, and that the feeling has no name. I also remembered that it will pass. It will return, and it will go away again. I think we all have these feelings. It’s the human condition.

When I think back on my childhood, I cannot find any happy memories. None. The whole thing is colored a dark grey, by my adoption. Losing my mother, and never being allowed to even speak of it, colored my life.

No family. No one. Nothing. Every day, all day.

I could not wait to escape from my adoptive parents house. I met my husband when I was 16. Someone who could save me, and make me whole.

I know. I was there. They tried, but I was so hurt. I could not feel their love. Their love was spoiled for me, because it came at the expense of my real family. I should not have been put in such an impossible position. I could not accept the love of the ones who I felt were responsible for my loss.

Did they really love me? I suppose so. I was a good enough child. But, I was not, and could never be their child. They had to maintain the illusion that I was. They did not tell anyone that I was adopted. It was a hidden family secret, one that I dared not speak of.

How I hated the phrase, “when we got you”. Got me? I wanted “when you were born”. I wanted my mother to tell the story, of my birth, not the story of these strangers who somehow, “got me”.

Even as a young child, I felt this way.

It was a lost cause, from the start. I was broken, unable to be fixed. On my own, from the start. I had to turn my heart to stone.

I remember, being at my Auntie Irene’s house, during the long hot summers when I was 6 & 7. There were 4 older kids there, my adoptive cousins. They did not like me much. The feeling was mutual, but I was at a disadvantage. I was all alone, and they had each other, as well as their real parents, and I was an unwelcome guest in their home. My adoptive parents sent me there so they could both work full time during the summer.

I used to lie awake in my borrowed bed, listening to my adoptive uncle’s snores and will my heart to be hard, like a stone so I would not feel the pain of being left alone, again. I locked my self in the bathroom, and said every curse word I knew.

I went home on weekends, and never told my adoptive mother any of it. I never told her the sex games my cousins would play either. I finally told her when I was an adult, and she said, “why didn’t you tell me”. Sigh.

Would I have sadness if I hadn’t been adopted? I’m sure. My real mother had issues. I still loved and needed her.

Another early morning. I couldn’t sleep again. This time it’s OK, because I’m on vacation this week! I can catch up on my sleep anytime this week.

I have been upset about something bio Aunt S said to me recently. It really steamed my clams, and I’m trying to analyze my feelings, as usual. I always wonder, why does it hurt so much? Am I being unreasonable?

Bio Aunt S and I made contact when she did 23 and me DNA, and we connected as relatives. I reached out to her, and we had a brief email exchange. I have not had much communication with my bio family. It’s been years since I spoke to Aunt S.

Aunt S said this in her email “I do see your dad a couple of times per year. I love him, “warts and all”, and I cannot speak for him or comment on his choices.”. This is what has been bothering me.

I have not seen my father since Christmas 2012. He has chosen to have no contact with me, or my 4 children. His kept daughter recently had a baby, who I think lives with him. The fact that Aunt S, dad’s sister loves and accepts my father’s decision to exile me hurts me deeply.

I do not feel any love, kindness or acceptance towards me in the statement my aunt made. I know siblings love each other, and are loyal, but is putting family members on a pedestal doing the right thing? Dad is loved, “warts and all”, but I am still shunned. It hurts so much. I will shove it down into my psyche, and get over it, but it will never stop hurting. The pain will just subside over time to a dull ache, which will flare up from time to time, when I am reminded of my losses.

My father’s sister did 23 and me, and guess who popped up on her DNA family page, little ole me!

She was listed as my half sister, which would either mean her father, is my father too, or my father, her brother is her father too. I don’t think either is the case, with DNA relatives, they come close, but the exact relationship isn’t always certain. But I kinda liked the idea that my dad slept with his mother. Then finally his family would see he wasn’t a great guy. I thought it was kinda funny.

So, I contacted her, on the 23 and me website. We shared our DNA profiles. It was nice. Then we started emailing. I shared my huge Ancestry.com tree with her. She asked if I wanted to meet for dinner sometime, me and hubby with her and her hubby.

I did not want to do that. I told her about the shunning, and she said my cousin, the one who told me about the shunning had it wrong. There was no decision to shun me. I guess it was not official, but everyone did it anyway?

Strangely, I have no desire to see my Aunt. She does not mean much to me. She told me that she loves my father, “warts and all” and cannot speak about his decisions. Fair enough. I can, and his decisions hurt a lot of people. He’s a scumbag. As long as I feel this way, I don’t think I can ever get along well with my aunt. We can’t have a casual going out to dinner kind of relationship. Especially after all those years of silence.

And…still no word about my mother. No acknowledgement of her death. No I’m sorry, nothing. why would I want to be near this woman? Well, I don’t.

Auntie said she’d be there if I ever wanted to get to know her. Does that sound like a loving invitation? It does not to me. I know enough to stay away from this one…